If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

site about the abbots of Eiheiji

Just to share an insteresting discovery, a site about all the abbots of Eiheiji since Dogen in Japanese but with plenty of interesting documents. With a special page on Niwa Zenji, Nishijima's teacher and our ancestor in the lineage:

I will set about to translate it over the coming weeks, and we can publish it here (it seems all public information). I see Nishijima Wafu is mentioned in there once. I also order a book by Niwa Zenji, mentioned in the article, that I did not know.

That would be interesting to read, especially since the Google translation to English was even more confusing than not being able to read the Japanese. As an aside, it would actually be very interesting to know more about many of the individuals in the lineage.

Neika / Ian Adams

寧 Nei - Peaceful/Courteous
火 Ka - Fire

Look for Buddha outside your own mind, and Buddha becomes the devil. --Dogen

I always felt a deep connection with Niwa, very humble and soft, and I vividly remember when he came to the West. Little did i know at the time that I would be one of his great grand sons one day. Here is some stuff I wrote a few years ago.

Like a laughing and beaming cat
Eternal rambling of the brook
the cow enters the stream
your eyebrows like brushes
and teeth and tongue
gulping deep blue sky
dolls you playing with
at five or six years of age
dressing them endlessly
your shaved head under the sharp blade
the incense cloud and fragrant pine
the loud voice of the valley
shaking the rocks
rocking the silent moon
not making sense of anything
loosing track, wiping footprints
how can one walk the rain
what is the faith of trees, bees, birds?
Not answering
bleeding laughters
merely gazing
with gentleness
you ascend the Eiheiji seat
and bow at dogs in secret
Niwa
my blood in yours
and yours in mine
soiled
as this all world
seal in space
not even a ripple
or stir
or chatter
or whisper
the seal where two moons
collide
and turn into
each other
Niwa
like a rambling and beaming cat
eternal laughing of the brook

Although he was as mainstream, orthodox and traditional as could be, Abbot of Eiheiji (Dogen's temple, the monastery of all training monasteries in Japanese Soto Zen ... he was the "Pope" of the Zen Vatican) ...

... he was also very dynamic in his belief that one must support the coming of Zen to the West, and in Ordaining and making his Dharma Heirs some folks who were reformers, not completely orthodox and traditional, out in the worlders, who were strong critics of how dusty and musty Soto Shu (the Soto Zen Church) in Japan often had become. That is why he made his Dharma Heirs some unique types and reformers like Taisen Deshimaru and our Nishijima Roshi. Niwa actually did so, expressing their hope that the spread of Zen overseas would result in something more dynamic and alive than what Zen had sometimes become in Japan, and that it would actually bounce back to give Japanese Zen a much needed kick in the shins.

Here is a little film of him, produced years ago, which shows him in formal Dokusan with a young priest. (That's him from the 1:15 to about 4:45 mark) ...

The guy was pretty unusual, as a very young child he loved to play endlessly with dolls and had quite feminine taste. Not at all what you would expect from a Zen priest, after Sawaki Kodo s death he took the newly ordained Deshimaru under his protection and wing and slways invited him in his temple with his European students. Desjardin did shoot Niwa giving Dokusan and his sitting is absolutely majestic and natural. When Deshimaru died and as he was about to become Eiheiji s abbot, he agreed to give transmission to three students of the late teacher. He came to France to do so and visited sanghas and other teachers in Spain, Italy and Germany. Totally open to the West, he was a leading exemple of the transmission to the westeners. The stories about him are many, his love for bowing even in front of a dog if a dog would go by, he also was the first abbot not to miss a single early morning sit in Eiheiji zendo ( the tradition is for the abbot to sit in his room on his own) Niwa had a heart as broad as the sea.

Last year a rakusu with Niwa s calligraphy ended up in my hands, a pure miracle, unheard to me, which I also see as a confirmation of a bond between the great grand father and his miserable great grand son beyond life and death.

The guy was pretty unusual, as a very young child he loved to play endlessly with dolls and had quite feminine taste. Not at all what you would expect from a Zen priest, after Sawaki Kodo s death he took the newly ordained Deshimaru under his protection and wing and slways invited him in his temple with his European students. Desjardin did shoot Niwa giving Dokusan and his sitting is absolutely majestic and natural. When Deshimaru died and as he was about to become Eiheiji s abbot, he agreed to give transmission to three students of the late teacher. He came to France to do so and visited sanghas and other teachers in Spain, Italy and Germany. Totally open to the West, he was a leading exemple of the transmission to the westeners. The stories about him are many, his love for bowing even in front of a dog if a dog would go by, he also was the first abbot not to miss a single early morning sit in Eiheiji zendo ( the tradition is for the abbot to sit in his room on his own) Niwa had a heart as broad as the sea.

Last year a rakusu with Niwa s calligraphy ended up in my hands, a pure miracle, unheard to me, which I also see as a confirmation of a bond between the great grand father and his miserable great grand son beyond life and death.

Gassho, Shawn Jakudo Hinton
It all begins when we say, “I”. Everything that follows is illusion.
"Even to speak the word Buddha is dragging in the mud soaking wet; Even to say the word Zen is a total embarrassment."
寂道